


plum rain

by sunbrights



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, birthday fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbrights/pseuds/sunbrights
Summary: Her socks are soaked through by homeroom, but it’s fine. This far into the rainy season, she’s already used to it.





	plum rain

The day she turns twelve, it rains. It’s steady, heavy, and unrelenting, all day: gutters swirl, bubble, and flood, and leaves at the ends of tree branches tear off in the wind. Umbrellas alone aren’t enough; the young master and his sister wear shiny, crinkled jackets and tall rain boots on the way to school, and even they don’t make it untouched.

(Peko only has her loafers. Her socks are soaked through by homeroom, but it’s fine. This far into the rainy season, she’s already used to it.)

The young master has Go club after class, so Peko waits for him on the steps outside the school, beneath the skinny, sagging overhang. It’s not enough to keep her out of the rain completely; gusts of wind whip through every so often and pull sprays of water with them, enough to catch her even when she stands back, close to the doors. The edges of her sleeves and skirt get damp, then soaked, then sodden, and the fabric grabs at her skin, clammy and uncomfortable.

It can’t be helped— so she waits.

He’s later than normal. She thinks that might be what’s behind his poor mood; he rattles the doors when he opens them, and swears when the strap of his bag catches on one of the handles. He lets them fall shut behind him, his shoulders against the glass, and turns his glare on her. 

“What’re you still out here for?” he demands.

“It’s my responsibility to see you home safely, young master.” He already knows; she waits every day for him, just like this, out on the school steps. She did yesterday, and will tomorrow. But he’d asked, so she answers.

He turns his head away. He glares at the rain, pouring off the overhang in rivulets. “You should have better things to do today,” he says.

Her throat tightens, a little, enough to ache. She has a childish urge to tangle her fingers together, but she keeps her hands still, held close at her sides. She is older— but so is he.

“I am your tool,” she says. “Whatever you need is most important.”

The line of his mouth thins. He looks at her, then, chin lifted and jaw out, and she thinks he has something else to say— but he doesn’t. The moment passes, and he pushes himself off the doors behind him. His umbrella snaps open, and he steps out, into the rain.

“Whatever,” he says, and she can’t see his face beneath the canopy. “Let's just go.”

*

The day she turns seventeen, there’s a short-lived squall late in the morning. It rushes in, all high-velocity, screeching wind and abrupt, heavy rain, rattling the classroom windows in the middle of Yukizome’s lecture. Fat droplets cling to the glass, darting over and around each other in chaotic patterns before being swept away by the next sheet of rain.

He skips class, that day. He’s been skipping more and more often, as of late, but usually only in the afternoon, when he can slip away with the excuse of independent study. That day is the first time he skips entirely, without pretense, and without shame.

He won’t let her go with him. He never does, when she asks. So Peko goes to class, that day, because she feels strange and adrift, and it’s the only other place she can think to be. 

(She is one of the very few who still attends: Sonia, Koizumi, and Nidai are the only others, that day, and Sonia and Nidai are fifteen and twenty-five minutes late, respectively.)

Peko closes her eyes, and listens to the thunder: the way it crackles, builds, and then _booms,_ like it’s shattering the frame of the sky. She’s always liked the steady, soothing repetition of rain— but today she likes the unpredictable claws of thunder better, likes the way they puncture the white noise of the storm.

(She tells herself she doesn’t know why. But later— when the sky is clear, but the air is still heavy with humidity, still burning with electricity— she knows.)

Class breaks for lunch; Peko leaves and doesn’t come back. 

He didn’t want her with him, but she still finds him anyway: in the underbelly of a seedy downtown neighborhood, his hair still damp from where he must have gotten caught in the storm, the beginnings of a bruise blooming along his left cheekbone. He gets angry, when he sees her. He shouts her, tells her to leave, that he doesn’t need her, that she should go back where she came from.

She tells him, “No.”

The smile that cracks through him makes her skin go cold, and her heart race.

*

The day she turns twenty-three, she waits for the storm at the head of the beach.

They can see it coming for miles: a dark, roiling cloud that crawls its way across the sky, opened up and pouring water back into the sea. It isn’t a threat; it’ll buffet the island for a few hours— perhaps overnight, depending on how much it depletes itself before it makes landfall— and then it will pass, leaving tomorrow clearer and cooler for it. But for now, it makes the waves dark and tall, even miles still off-shore, and Peko— watches it, fascinated.

Fuyuhiko comes to sit with her, in the sand. He watches her, more than the storm; she can feel his gaze on her face, even though he’s trying to be subtle, careful not to turn his head too far. He doesn’t say much beyond, “Hi,” (she answers, “Hello,”) and, “You okay?” (she answers, “Yes,”); they’ve gotten better, over the time they’ve had, at learning when they need words and when they don’t.

They sit together, and wait.

“C’mon,” he says, when the wind starts to rush in from the sea, cool and harsh against her face. His fingers curl gently over hers. “We should go in, before we get stuck out here like a coupla drowned fuckin’ rats.”

She closes her eyes. A gust curls around her throat, lifts her hair off her neck, twists and tangles it around her head. The smell of rain fills her nose, heady and humid. Goosebumps race up the length of her forearms.

“I want to stay,” she says.

“What?”

She can’t explain it. She can only smile at him, and hope he understands. “You can go in,” she tells him. “I’ll be alright.”

He snorts. It isn’t incredulity, just— surprise, small and marveling. She likes that she can do that, sometimes. Even now. Even still. She reaches out, and dips her thumb into the corner of his smile.

“... Nah,” he decides, tilting his cheek into her touch. “Bring it on.”

The storm comes. It starts as a few, heavy droplets leaving dark spots in the sand a few meters from their feet— and then it hits her shin, and then her cheek, and then leaves a round, broken splatter on the right lens of her glasses. Beside her, Fuyuhiko grunts, and swipes beneath his good eye with the heel of his hand.

It’s all the warning they get before the drizzle becomes a torrent.

It comes in heavy sheets, warm and pounding against her head and neck and shoulders. Each droplet is heavy enough to make its own impact against her skin, drumming loud enough in her ears to drown out anything and everything else. Her bangs plaster against her forehead, her shirt clings beneath her ribs and in the creases of her elbows, her breath rushes out of her chest, and— 

And Peko— laughs. 

Fuyuhiko takes her hand, fingers laced through hers, trapping rainwater and wet sand between their palms. She tries to look at him, tries to see him through the rain and the fog on her glasses, but she can only make out the most essential parts of him: his hair, flat against his head; the softness of his gaze; the wry edge of his smile. His skin is clammy, and the sopping cuff of his shirt clings uncomfortably to her bare forearm, but he is smiling, and he is strong, and he is with her.

Peko breathes in, tips her head back to the sky, and feels alive.


End file.
